A page with all the Gothic language-related stuff I’ve done.
A bit about me: I’m bilingual in English and German. And I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by the Gothic language for some reason, and recently (2025) found interest in it again due to realising that even after Arianism, it, a Germanic language, was seemingly used liturgically to some extent for centuries under Eastern Orthodox Christianity (of which I’m an inquirer). Though due to its Arian connotations, I’ve translated the Nicene Creed and want to translate various other liturgical texts, prayers and lives of the saints into the Gothic language, having the language “baptised into Christ”. I’m also into conlanging, calligraphy, software development, writing systems (how I found the Gothic language originally) and dozenal.
In my Latin alphabet transcriptions, for native words, ai and au without diacritics are pronounced short (/ɛ/ and /ɔ/) before h, ƕ and r, and long (/ɛː/ and /ɔː/, or /ai/ and /au/) otherwise. The diacritics then indicate the exceptional cases, aí and aú are short, and ái and áu are long. For non-native words, ai and au are always short unless marked otherwise. This way, it’s easier to spot and learn the exceptional cases when reading only in the Gothic alphabet. I also try to mark all cases of long a and u as ā and ū. And I don’t add diaeresis on i at the start of words as they were there in the manuscripts to help read Gothic when it was written without spaces … and they’re a pain to write all the time. I still add them stylistically, and within words to mark the start of a syllable, e.g. innïddja.
Feel free to contact me about anything; feedback greatly appreciated!
Tools
- Transliterator
- WulfilaVerse – A Userscript which adds Wulfila.be verse links to Bible Hub and Bible Gateway.
Sites
- Widr – The weather in Gothic
Translations
On the following pages, click on the lines to see translations and notes, and to see the Gothic text in the Latin script, click the “L” button in the top right corner.
Christian
Liturgical
- Nicene Creed
- Lesser Doxology
- Usual beginning of Orthodox services and private prayer.
- Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom 🛠 This is a long-term one
Prayers
Saints
- Theotokos
- Nicetas the Goth
- Sabbas the Goth
- 26 Gothic Martyrs in the Crimea
- Hermenegild the Goth of Spain 🛠 Very slowly translating from somewhat embellished Latin
- Sabbas Stratelates 🛠 Placeholder
Biblical
- Psalm 30 (31) 🛠 Mainly added this for verse 3
- Psalm 50 (51)
- Psalm 138 (139)
- Prayer of Manasseh
Poems
- Cædmon’s Hymn
- Hymn to Saint Nicetas rendered into alliterative verse
- Heliand 🛠 Sections thereof
Other
Stories
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit 🛠 A lot of words for vegetables I need to come up with…
- The Poor Man and the Rich Man 🛠
Fonts
- Noto Serif Gothic (v1.0) – Font with uppercase and lowercase Gothic letters. The letters I created from the various letters in the original Noto Serif font, largely from Latin and Cyrillic letters. Licensed under SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.
Links
Various other Gothic-related things, not by me, but useful and interesting.
Blogs
- Himma Daga – News in Gothic
- Old English and Gothic Blog by Edmund Fairfax
- Projekte zur gotischen Schrift und Literatur by Dr. Christian T. Petersen
- Database of the Gothic Language by David Landau
- Dr. Pfeffers Gotica
- Ƕaiwa ist in Gutalanda
Posts & Pages
Discussion Platforms
Works
- Bokahus – Collection of works
- Glǽmscrafu – Has some works by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Skaldic Bard
- Lyrics in Gothic
- Tríar Manach
- The Modern Gothic Bible Restoration – I’ll admit my Gothic language ability isn’t particularly high, but for a book over which translations are intensely fought and the wording is vitally important theologically, with the multitude of contributors, the quality is somewhat inconsistent. I do like the sentiment though, and don’t mean to discourage.
Fragments
- Wulfila.be – New Testament and Nehemiah, and without translation, Skeireins, Signatures (Naples Deed & Arezzo Deed) and Calendar.
- Skeireins with translations
- Gothica Bononiensia with translation
- Naples Deed with translation and some interesting notes
- Arezzo Deed with translation
- Mangup Graffiti photos
- Publication on Mangup graffiti with translations
- Codex Argenteus Upsaliensis – The page has a full PDF of the book
- Radiographic Scans from the Codex Argenteus Upsaliensis
- Silver Bible pages in colour
- Codex Carolinus Scans: 255r to 256v, 277r and 277v, 280r and 280v (read order: 277rv, 256vr, 255vr, 280rv)
- Studying the Gothic Palimpsests by David Landau – Includes scans of the Codices Ambrosiani with Ezra and Nehemiah and also the Gothic calendar scans
Lexicon & Grammar
Etymology
- Gothic Dictionary with Etymologies by András Rajki
- A comparative glossary of the Gothic language with especial reference to English and German by G. H. Balg
- Grundriss der gotischen Etymologie by Sigmund Feist
Onomastics
- Names from Other Early Cultures – Includes Gothic
- Gothic Names
Translation Help
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